The Language of Despotism

by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Long before 1984 gave us the adjective “Orwellian” to describe the political corruption of language and thought, Thucydides observed how factional struggles for power make words their first victims. Describing the horrors of civil war on the island of Corcyra during the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides wrote, “Words had to change […]

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Don’t Mess with Messiahs

Whenever things go wrong, it’s the fault of those obstructionists in Congress. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online In Obama’s most recent — and embarrassing — public whine, he lashed out at the once-obsequious press. In his now customary first-person I/me/my/mine lament (e.g., “They don’t do anything, except block me and call me

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In Search of What You Resent

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia The Maliki government in Iraq fueled anti-Americanism as it systematically destroyed the coalition government that the Americans had created and protected by the surge. Maliki, who had once been hunted by the genocidal Saddam Hussein, in a sense was a creation of the United States and its commitment to

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Looking Back at Iraq

It is historically inaccurate to say the war was cooked up by Bush alone. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online So who lost Iraq? The blame game mostly fingers incompetent Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Or is Barack Obama culpable for pulling out all American troops monitoring the success of the 2007–08 surge?

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Obama’s World Disorder

by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas Amid all the talk of the isolationism that supposedly characterizes the Obama administration’s foreign policy, we forget that since World War II, the global order has largely been determined by U.S. engagement. The historically rare state of prosperity and peace that defined the postwar world were due to

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Melancholy Lessons from Iraq

by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine The unfolding collapse of Iraq’s government before the legions of al Qaeda jihadists is the capstone of Barack Obama’s incompetent and politicized foreign policy. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), armed with plundered American weapons and flush with stolen money, is consolidating a Sunni terrorist state

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The Federal Octopus

Federal agencies now exist not for the public good but for their employees’ benefit and Obama’s agenda. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online When IRS Commissioner John Koskinen arrogantly told Congress that he had no apologies for an agency that has targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny, had a top-ranking bureaucrat take the Fifth Amendment,

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The Decline of Western Civilization in a Few Paragraphs

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia Every once in a while, a criminal case — consider the O.J. trial — reflects the immoral course of our current trajectory. Here is an ongoing local criminal case that pretty much sums up what is happening to our culture, laws, and society at large. Perla Ibeth Vazquez, 27,

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Immigration and America’s Failure of Nerve

by Bruce Thornton // FrontPage Magazine The number of unaccompanied children from Central America into the U.S. has reached 47,000 since October, and may hit 90,000 by the end of this year. The official story is that they are fleeing drug-gang mayhem and political violence in their home countries, and so are refugees and asylum-seekers. But the

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America’s Middle East Dilemma

Toppling tyrants is ineffective in the long term without years of unpopular occupation. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Two and a half years ago, the U.S. pulled every soldier out of a mostly quiet Iraq. In the void thus created, formerly al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists calling themselves “The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”

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